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USAF Looking for Airmen Who Speak Computer

The Air Force is launching a new pilot program to help it identify and use airmen's digital fluency more efficiently. Public domain photo via Flickr.

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The Air Force is beginning a pilot program aimed at
identifying airmen’s fluency in computer languages and coding, and treating
that skill in the same way it treats fluency in a spoken language.

The point, said Capt. Mike Kanaan, the enterprise
lead for artificial intelligence and machine learning for Air Force
intelligence, is to allow the Air Force to identify and use airmen’s digital
fluency more efficiently.

The first step in the effort, which is being conducted through the Language Enabled Airman Program run by the Air Force Culture and Language Center, is to identify the airmen who will participate in the pilot, and then find "compelling
mission sets” that can use these abilities. Such applications could include manipulating human resources
databases or area of responsibility target management.

Kanaan said the pilot program will start in about 90 days. Then in about six to eight months, he
said, the Air Force will take the information learned through the pilot and consider establishing new billets using these skills.

The aim, he said, is to know where the airmen with these skills are located throughout the force and to value
them instead of just wondering how many airmen code.

“We have to fix the answer to that question, and its through
this paradigm shift of understanding that in the 21st Century, computer
languages unto themselves should be commensurately treated like human
languages,” he said.​